Frisbee and Iran - June 12 and 13

Didn't do too much on Friday, but I managed to get myself over to the East End Brewery to pick up a growler of IPA. I ended up hanging out there for awhile, which was really nice. The place has a really good vibe (it's a tiny brewery run by two people), and during the growler hours you have people of all ages coming in, even parents with toddlers. I ended up deciding to stick with IPA, but I also sampled some Kvass, which is basically beer made with bread. It was actually pretty good. Spent the rest of the night bar hopping and watching the Stanley cup finals, which was fun.

Saturday morning I woke up early along with Friar to get out to summer league. We had promised to give our captains a ride, which we did. They were both really great people, Geoff is a rising senior at Pitt and Andrea is a rising junior. The rest of the team was fantastic as well. There's not too much better than getting outside, playing disc and meeting people. On the way back Geoff and Andrea mentioned that they both worked at an ice cream place and they offered us free ice cream whenever we dropped by. So yea, a pretty great start to the day. The rest of my Saturday was spent doing absolutely nothing, which was fine by me. I was little immobile anyway, having been stung on the bottom of my foot by a bee.

On a completely different note, I've been fascinated by the election drama in Iran as well as the media's coverage of it. There seems to be a few very fundamental tensions within the democratic model (or at least the popular conception of it), one of which is that a healthy democracy has a populace that cares deeply about the issues and participates in great numbers, but the losers in any given election are supposed to accept the outcome without attempting to undermine the state. Over the last few days in Iran we've seen a pro-Western candidate (implicitly associated with democracy) defeated, and then refusing to concede the election. I recognize that there is a chance that the election was rigged, but the polls were close enough that it conceivably might not have been. Similarly to America's support of anti-communist dictators in third world countries during the 20th century, it seems like we (particularly the media in this case) too readily sacrifice the tenets of democracy for political exigencies. Why has no one condemned the riots in Iran? Because the rioters are on our side?

Lastly, and more broadly, I find it interesting that in mature democracies, though there is certainly a deep concern over issues, a great number of people are apathetic (or at least ambivalent and choose not to vote). To what extent is a partially apathetic population necessary for the smooth functioning of a democracy? If EVERYONE cared deeply about each election would we ever be able to have a peaceful transition of power? Do the apathetic anchor the political ideologues and prevent extreme groups from acting on their polarizing ideology?

NB: The line between legitimate protest and illegitimate violence is obviously unclear, but it seems to me that what is happening in Iran has crossed that line.

Edit: After doing some more reading on the election, it does seem that there are many indicators that there was something fishy going on. So, perhaps Iran wasn't the best case to make my point with, but it does bring up other interesting (albeit tangential) questions of how effective violent protest is, and what justifies it.

Another Edit: Caught this line in the NY Times tonight: "If the election were truly “real and free” as Mr. Ahmadinejad insisted, the results would be accepted by the voters and the government would not have to resort to such repression." Seems like a pretty simplistic way of looking at things.